YouTube blocks North Korean channel to avoid breaching sanctions

YouTube has blocked North Korea’s state television channel, which broadcast news on everything from nuclear tests to Kim Jong Un’s outings, to avoid breaching American sanctions against the regime.

The action apparently was taken not because of the content in the channel but because the North Korean regime could earn money from it through advertising.

“This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines,” a message on the Korean Central Television channel’s page reads.

YouTube’s community guidelines ban videos that include violent, sexual or harmful content or that breach copyright. Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, YouTube’s parent company, also asks users to flag content that may violate the law.

“We don’t comment on individual videos or channels,” said Taj Meadows, Google’s head of communications in Asia, “but we do disable accounts that violate our terms of service or community guidelines, and when we are required by law to do so.”

Under sanctions imposed in March, the Treasury Department designated North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department for sanctions for engaging in censorship on behalf of the North Korean authorities. The measures ban any American company or person from doing business with the department.

Joshua Stanton, a lawyer and proponent of sanctions who writes the One Free Korea blog, said YouTube and Google probably realized there was a problem with money changing hands.

“Having reviewed the sanctions in March, they would have said that this is risky, we are potentially in violation,” he said. “It’s good that they have done this, although it’s a fairly small piece of the picture.”

Bruce Klingner, an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said North Korea had other options. “The Propaganda and Agitation Department is perfectly free to post the videos without making money on them, or have one of their many supporters do it,” he said. “Or they could stop censoring free expression inside North Korea.”

The channel used to show North Korea’s evening news broadcasts and other propaganda programs, and at times featured breaking news. After a January nuclear test, Korean Central Television went live on YouTube, with the announcer declaring that the state had tested a hydrogen bomb, although this was disputed by scientists.

The decision to block the channel has disappointed analysts who used it for insights into one of the most impenetrable of states.

“While it provided daily news shows on events the regime wanted shown countrywide, it also helped give context to structures I would normally only see via satellite image,” said David Schmerler, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Using this account for image collection, along with other sources, enabled North Korea watchers to build a much fuller sense of how something unfolded, Schmerler said.

“This led to a better understanding of an event, even if the North Koreans tried to hide or spin a particular event as being a success when it may not have been,” he said.

Although there are other YouTube channels that broadcast North Korea’s news bulletins, the affected channel was the fastest and one of the most reliable sources of images. The channel’s termination also means the archive of videos that analysts pored over has disappeared.

Because the channel has been shut down, it’s not possible to see how many views the clips had and to use that information to work out how much money the channel was making from ad revenue through YouTube. But analysts said the amount was probably minimal.

Fifield writes for the Washington Post.